The Sports Concussion Institute-Atlanta, participated in an interactive evening that promoted concussion awareness and sports safety hosted by the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta, GA. Neurological testing at baseline and after a concussion is a critical part of any comprehensive concussion program. However, it is hard to grasp the significance of a concussion without understanding some basic neuroscience. SCI-Atlanta staff, Cheryl Appleberry (athletic trainer), Dr. Ellie Zimmerman (neuropsychologist), Dr. Cayleigh Benny (neuropsychology fellow), and Dr. Russell Gore (medical director) prepared fun and interactive games to explain the neuroscience behind the brain functions used in everyday life and disrupted after a concussion. This demonstration included balance, reaction time, vision, and neurocognitive tests used to evaluate these brain functions.

Dr. Tony Strickland (CEO and Chairman of SCI), Dr. Aaron McMurtray (Medical Director of Sports Neurology), and Sidney Jones (Athletic Trainer) presented on the pathophysiology, assessment, and clinical management of sports related concussions to hospital physicians and nurses. They discussed the importance of taking a multi-disciplinary and collaborative approach to the return to play and learn process.

The NFL, in association with Under Armour and General Electric awarded Dr. Gore, Co-Investigator with Emory University and Georgia Tech Research Team a $500,000 brain research grant in the Head Health Challenge II. Researchers and engineers from this research team developed a prototype medical device that can screen and assess concussions in near-real time. The portable device, known as iDETECT, can be used on the sidelines of sporting events. It consists of a headset and handheld device that rapidly assesses the player’s symptoms, including cognitive function, balance and eye movements. Dr. Gore is the Medical Director for Vestibular Neurology and Rehabilitation at SCI-Atlanta.

Dr. Tricia Kasamatsu, Dr. Angela Yi, and Dr. Jose Posas presented a 4-hour instructional course entitled “A Multidisciplinary Approach to Sports Concussion Management” at the 91st annual ACRM conference held in Toronto on October 7-11, 2014. The presentation reviewed the latest research, telehealth approaches, and provided clinical models of multi-disciplinary collaborations in the management of sport-induced concussions. The ACRM is an organization of rehabilitation professionals dedicated to serving people with disabling conditions by supporting research that promotes health, independence, productivity, and quality of life and meets the needs of rehabilitation clinicians and people with disabilities.

As part of its mission to advance research and appropriate treatment for people with brain injuries, the Brain Injury Association of America (BIAA) announced in July that it has awarded a grant to the Brain Injury Research Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The grant funds a three-year investigation to develop Guidelines for the Rehabilitation and Disease Management of Adults with Moderate to Severe Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).

Fifty of the nation’s top researchers and clinicians, as well as family members of people with brain injuries, were selected to review and assess evidence in functional, medical, cognitive, behavioral, and social domains. They held their first meeting September 9 and 10 in Dallas, Texas.

Dr. Yi is the Director of Neuropsychology and Rehabilitation at the Sports Concussion Institute and specializes in assessing and treating individuals with traumatic brain injury across the severity spectrum.

“Individuals who sustain TBIs rarely have access to rehabilitation of sufficient timing, scope, duration, and intensity that would allow them to recover to the maximum extent possible,” said Susan Connors, President and CEO of BIAA. “When a person’s care is delayed, discontinued, or denied altogether, the result is often increased re-hospitalization rates and greater levels of disability. This creates a cycle of joblessness, homelessness, and dependence on public programs.”

BIAA and Mount Sinai are addressing this problem head-on. During the next three years, panelists will:

Identify and fully describe the continuum of care available following TBI;

Determine the evidence for various rehabilitative treatments and, based on that evidence and/or expert opinion, make recommendations for treatment and management in various settings;

Produce a document that supports improvements in the quality and consistency of rehabilitation treatment; and

Broadly disseminate the recommendations to payer, provider, patient and advocacy communities in an effort to increase access to care.

The goal of the project is to learn how much rehabilitation adult patients with moderate to severe TBI should receive, in what setting, and at what time. BIAA and Mount Sinai have pledged to keep the brain injury community fully informed and invite input and feedback at certain key points along the way. Visit www.biausa.org/TBIGuidelines for more information.

ACRM Cognitive Rehabilitation Manual Faculty Dr. Angela Yi, Dr. Donna Langenbahn, and Rebecca Eberle, presented a 2-day training workshop for rehabilitation professionals at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on August 16-17, 2014. The workshop focused on teaching evidenced-based interventions of executive functions, memory, attention, hemispatial neglect, and social communication. The American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine (ACRM) is an organization comprised of various disciplines in rehabilitation medicine and strives to translate and make accessible evidenced based research.

For more information, please see: http://www.acrm.org/meetings/cognitive-rehab-training/#live-training

SCI clinicians collaborated and presented a poster entitled, “A Model of Systematic Selection of Academic Adjustments after Concussion”. The goal of this project was to provide education and to highlight awareness on a return to school program for student athletes. The Sports Concussion Conference was held July 11-13, 2014 in Chicago Illinois and featured the latest scientific advances in research on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of concussion. The authors of this presentation included: Tricia Kasamatsu, Ph.D., ATC, Angela Yi, Ph.D., Jose Posas, M.D., Sidney Jones ATC, Vernon Williams, M.D.

Information about this conference can be found at: https://www.aan.com/conferences/sports-concussion-conference/

Dr. Gore along with fellow researchers presented at a national conference a novel tool in testing cognitive impairment and mild traumatic brain injury. Dr. Gore is the Medical Director for Vestibular Neurology and Rehabilitation at SCI-Atlanta.

Cognistat and the Sports Concussion Institute are pleased to announce the formation of Cognistat Sport Joint Venture, Inc., whose mission is to develop science-based software tools for the evaluation of concussion and associated injuries. Both companies are committed to providing new best-in-class tools for clinicians to triage, evaluate and manage concussion in athletes.

The Sports Concussion Institute (SCI) is a leading US provider of concussion assessment, diagnostic and clinical management services. SCI was founded in 2005 to provide state-of-the-art assessment, treatment, and prevention services for athletes and other active persons of all ages playing high velocity sports. SCI provides specialized neurological and neuropsychological care to people with closed head injuries, acute and chronic pain, balance, memory, and learning disorders. SCI has conducted more than 100,000 assessments of neuropsychological and vestibular functioning in athletes, and continues to provide concussion education, prevention, and clinical management services to middle schools, high schools, universities and professional teams throughout the US.

Cognistat is a market leader in evaluating cognitive function in teenagers and adults. Its state-of-the-art computerized tools are available in thirteen languages and are used worldwide. The original Cognistat Paper test was introduced in 1979 and has become the most widely used screening tool by North American neuropsychologists and other health care practitioners. The cloud-based Cognistat Assessment System and stand-alone Cognistat Active Form are computer-assisted, clinician-administered versions of the original Paper test and are designed to interface with electronic medical records, facilitate the monitoring of patients on repeat testing and provide a paper-free environment. Cognistat Five is a five minute computer-assisted test for evaluating the risk of dementia, delirium and mild-cognitive impairment in adults.

Dr. Tony Strickland, President of the new joint venture, said “SCI is honored, together with Cognistat, to launch this innovative partnership that will significantly enhance the health and safety of athletes playing high-velocity sports. Additionally, we are concerned about a subgroup of stand-alone, untried and/or untested software solutions used to evaluate concussion in athletes and to make “return to competition” decisions. We strongly believe that clinicians must play a key role in concussion evaluation and our goal is to design best-in-class software-based tools that facilitate their specialized work. Our two companies are well suited to bring a new level of excellence, combined with pragmatism and convenience, to concussion evaluation.”